Being Geeky Part II

Or "Sorry to everyone expecting tales of Beaky's Adventures but have you seen the weather out there?"

After the success of the previous PC upgrade to the SSD recently, I was pleased when a box arrived with the anticipated graphics card and power unit.

First thought was...I knew the card was big, but couldn't they have found a better size box?!

It's in there somewhere...are you hiding?  Novatech sure package things well.

And the new toys finally dug out of the packing peanuts.

The Asus card has to be the most expensive-feeling packaging I have ever seen on anything - including jewellery.

So, with the new components looking as though they survived the shipping to France, it was time to start ripping things apart.

Since this was the first time I had done anything like this, I figured being able to put everything back together as I found it might be useful, so labelled all the cables I unplugged as I disconnected the power cables.

After a while, out with the old...

And in with the new...note the size of the new card comared to the old one above on the right.  No, I wasn't sure if it was going to fit yet.

New power and graphics card installed, and it all fitted! Now to see if it works...

It's ALIVE!

A quick install of the card software and everything is working well.

Oh yeah baby!

Previous score was 5.1 on the two graphics criteria :)

So that's that little project completed without major problems.

What's next?

Being Geeky

After a little deliberation, I decided to replace my PC's boot drive with an SSD.  I'd heard good things about these - the premise being the read/write speed is much higher, allowing faster access to the OS, programs and (more importantly) games.

I ended up spending most of lat Saturday on the swap - 30 minutes on the HDD/SDD swap and the rest of the day reinstalling Windows 7 and all my software.  The only problem was self-inflicted - I forgot a password for the Final Fantasy XI game (sorted later!).

Benefits of the new SSD...boot time is much faster -  about 3 seconds between logging into Windows and being able to run programs...programs open far faster...games are running smoother. And that is just by having the OS and games installed on the SSD. I haven't changed any other hardware. 

Now I'm just waiting for the new GPU, CPU and RAM...that'll be next weekend's project (well, I ahve to do something whilst it's cold outside, right?)

Review of 2012

I know, I know, it's  bit late to do this, but better late than never, right?

2012 started with the anniversary of losing Dad suddenly. I often wonder what he would have made of my motorcycle adventures, with some of the stories he'd told us of his own trips - and I've yet to try this...

Dad crossing a ford, probably Exmoor, pre-1977.

 
The biggest thing in 2012 for me was the move to France. A new job, new home, (and a new Beaky!) and by far the biggest change I'd made in a while.

The move down to Toulouse could not have gone better, with a load of people helping to make the transition as easy as possible - friends and colleagues (old and new!) at both ends, the mobility team at Airbus, the relocation contact at CSE Mobilitie, Langdons Removals.

Beaky in the removal van.

One of the selling points of the move was the opportunity to explore the south west of France.  I've been remiss in updating the blog much telling those adventures, but a few highlights were:

• Easter weekend in Nimes and Arles exploring the Roman sites
• Bordeau, and the dunes.
• Summer holiday spending three weeks seeing the UK, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland. 
• Various trips around the Ariege region - beautiful scenery.
• Castles galore.
• fun in the snow

I covered something like 14,000 miles, most of them trouble-free (we don't talk about the return trip from Geneva and the Evil Petrol Station of Doom). One puncture (possibly a result of riding down through an area of roadworks near my home as it looked muddy...). Two sets of tyres and no idea how many tanks of fuel.

In all those miles, I had one close call with a car side swiping me that left the car more damaged than Beaky...and I stayed upright.

 Leaving the best news to last, I became an uncle for the first time.  Artan was born six weeks premature just after I moved to France.

My nephew and his Very Proud Dad.

Since then he's grown...and grown...and is now doing all the things a seven month old baby should be doing.  His parents (my brother and his wife) are about to move into their first house, so even bigger changes for them in 2012!

So, onwards with 2013, and may the Adventures continue!

A Beaky Adventure - Beaky on Ice

Whilst on my ski adventure, I realised I had left the video camera mount at home, so was unable to get any footage of the snow.

So, obviously, the thing to do was go out again and record some.  In the snow.  Yeah, I was daft enough.

This trip stayed closer to home, and I headed over to Ax Les Thermes and up the Col de Pailheres taht I had been to before. This was where I had found a little snow earlier in the season, so figured it was a good spot to aim for.

The result was the following:

 
On seeing the snow plow being fitted with snow chains I decided to not go any farther and turned around (as you see at the end of the video).  However, part way down the hill I regretted my decision and wanted to try farther, so went up the nearby Col du Chioula until I decided I had pushed my luck enough for one day...

A fun ride out, but probably the daftest thing I have ever done!

A Beaky Adventure - Cooold

...or fun in the snow.

Just before Christmas I had a couple of weekends enjoying the snow around the Pyranees.  Well, I say enjoying...in hindsight it was all great fun, but at the time I was thinking this was some of the most bat-shit crazy things I had done.

The first weekend at the start of December a group of friends invited me to join them skiing. I'd wanted to try this whilst in Toulouse.  The only time I had trie skiing was on a dry slope in teh UK when I was at school, on a course over five days.  I managed to finish the last day by chipping a couple of teeth and almost breaking my arm - but figured I'd be okay on soft snow.

The plan originally was to head to Ax Les Thermes, which is only an hour or so away from Toulouse. I wanted some photos of Beaky in the snow (don't ask) so said I'd ride down with them in the Mystery Machine. This wasn't as stupid as it sounded, as I had been to  Andorra in the snow back in April when I arrived in France, and knew the roads were kept pretty clear.

All well and good, except we ended up leaving 30 minutes earlier (at 6:30am) and heading over the Pyranees into Spain to ski at Baqueira. 

This was cold.

Very cold.

Beaky was showing the air temp to be -11 degrees C as we passed the valley into the Spanish border; I've no idea what the wind chill effect was.  Luckily the roads were clear of snow and dry, so there was no danger from ice.

I'd also managed to lose my friends in the Mystery Machine on the autoroute, so wasn't entirely sure where I was heading. Luckily I could find the village without any problems. On finding a promising looking car park (filled with SUVs and vans being unlaoded of ski gear) I got a few odd looks as I found somewhere to park. 

Usually my tactic to parking in France is to find other bikes and park with them, on the basis that the locals know what they are doing.  For some strange reason, there were no other motorbikes around...I couldn't imagine why!

After defrosting with a cup of coffee, I found my friends, geared up and enjoyed a day on teh slopes.  Kelly joined me on the bambi slopes, and gave me a few pointers whilst I tried not to kill myself or start an avalaunche.

I could just about walk at the end of the day, then had the fun of riding back down the mountain to our hotel in the dark.

The next day I skipped the skiing, as I wanted to get some photos and ride home in daylight.  Another cold trip, but not as bad as the previous day!

A few photos:

The standard Beaky-in-the-photo shot.  The slope opposite was the ski resort.

A view of the bambi slopes where I had spent the previous day.

A snowy field on the mountain opposite the ski resort.

The temperature up on the mountain.

Icicles!

Arty "Beaky Eyes Up the Road Ahead" shot.